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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148123">ready! steady!</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/offlight/pseuds/offlight'>offlight</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Childhood Friends, Established Relationship, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Married Life, Post-Canon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 19:02:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24148123</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/offlight/pseuds/offlight</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Hiding is more fun when you have someone to hide with.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>124</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dimilix Remix 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>ready! steady!</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            Inspired by

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/619222">Sketches</a> by owlthepen.
        </li>

    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>a remix of @owlthepen's sketch of dmfx snowball fighting + huddling together under dima's cape afterward to warm up for the dimilix remix game \o/</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em>seven. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>When it snows—properly, that is, not the puny flakes that sometimes gust around at the end of winter—it gathers along the hills outside the Fraldarius manor in perfect little dunes. These dunes are the optimal size for some light sledding, for running through or flipping onto, or for hiding behind. They are very popular amongst the village children, who usually pour out in a stream as soon as the snow starts to gather to begin their games.</p><p>Though there are six little dunes in all, only two of them are occupied this afternoon. There is a peek of light hair behind one and dark hair behind another.</p><p>Felix pushes up as far as he dares, just enough for his eyes to look out and lock with Dimitri‘s. He ducks back down immediately with a giggle.</p><p>“Felix!” Dimitri calls from his dune.</p><p>“Yes!”</p><p>“Come out!”</p><p>It’s hard to keep from giggling when playing games. Something about the act of playing itself is funny. The act of hiding from Dimitri while plotting an attack is even funnier.</p><p>Felix begins to scrape together snowballs with his mittens, packing them as tight as he can manage. He rubs his nose with the back of his hand and sniffs.</p><p>“Felix!” Dimitri tries again.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Can you come out, please?”</p><p>“You’re just going to hit me!” Felix grabs his best snowball and crouches.</p><p>“No, I will not!” Dimitri calls, insistent. It’s his lying voice, Felix can tell by how he’s laughing.</p><p>“Prove it!”</p><p>“Come out!”</p><p>Felix darts up—Dimitri follows, swift. He doesn’t know which of them throws their snowball first, but he knows that Dimitri’s sails past his left ear while his own knocks straight into Dimitri’s chest, knocking him down with a small shriek.</p><p>A victory. He grabs the rest of his snowballs, rushing over to pelt Dimitri with his whole arsenal before he can get up again. Dimitri flails and laughs and flings as much snow as he can grab up into Felix’s face. It lands in the warm space between the collar of Felix’s cloak and his neck, giving him a freeze that seeps to his bones and drips down as it begins to melt.</p><p>The first round ends when Dimitri finally makes it to his feet again and charges Felix with two fistfuls of loose snow. Felix screams and flees back to his dune, and they start anew.</p><p>Four rounds later, Felix is declared the victor of the day.</p><p>“And then I took the snow—“ Felix explains once they’re inside, tone serious, miming holding a snowball as Glenn towels his hair with a ferocity that makes it stand up in five different directions. “And I took the snow—and I—I took it and threw it at Dimitri and he was so surprised that he <em> screamed</em>!”</p><p>“It was very cold,” Dimitri says, a little put out from losing and making it known with a tiny, round pout. He had already been dried by Glenn (much more carefully) and is now sitting by the fire with a large blanket pulled around himself, tight under his chin in a way that makes him look like a mound. “It was cold in my clothes, Felix! That is why I screamed.”</p><p>“You screamed because you lost!”</p><p>“That’s not true,” Dimitri insists, more upset.</p><p>“Don’t gloat, Felix,” Glenn scolds, flicking his towel and leaning back to examine Felix. “Do you feel dry enough?”</p><p>“Mmhmm.”</p><p>“Warm enough?”</p><p>Felix nods. Glenn grabs his hand—and frowns. “Liar. Go get under the blanket with His Highness while the staff finds you two a change of clothes. And don’t bother me again!”</p><p>Glenn had been playing a game of knights and squires with some of the other older kids when Felix and Dimitri tumbled up to him, soaked and shivering. Now that he’s finally freed from the responsibility of making sure they don’t freeze to death, he looks more than ready to return to it. He runs off before Felix even makes it over to drop down next to Dimitri—but that is not enough to distract Felix from noticing the way that Dimitri still won’t fully look at him.</p><p>“I’m sorry I gloated,” Felix says, feeling a little bad now.</p><p>“I forgive you,” Dimitri says.</p><p>“May I come under the blanket with you?"</p><p>This seems to warm Dimitri back up. He opens the blanket and they squish together, close enough for Felix to grab the other end and fold it closed around them. Dimitri is comfortably warm from being in front of the fire for so long with the blanket. Felix lines their arms up for more of that heat.</p><p>“You <em> are </em> cold.” Dimitri tries to wriggle away but doesn’t get very far, not with Felix clenched down on the other side of the blanket.</p><p>“I don’t feel very cold.”</p><p>There’s a tickle in Felix’s nose, and he sneezes. Dimitri laughs.</p><p>“That was because my nose tickled! Not because I’m cold!”</p><p>“I see,” Dimitri says, in his lying voice.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> seventeen.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>There are three different litters of kittens scattered around Garreg Mach.</p><p>The first of them is tucked away in a line of hedges by the dining hall. The mother of this litter—white and fluffy and regal—is obsessed with attention and begs constantly for food. Once her kittens are of age to learn from her, the entire family wanders up to the dining hall doors and meow as cutely as possible for scraps. Seteth had ordered for none of the cats to be allowed in for the sake of cleanliness, but many of the students sneak them in anyway. There is always a light scolding whenever white fur is found on the floor.</p><p>A second litter is tucked away across the bridge and in the graveyard by the cathedral, in a little patch of hedge. Leonie is the one who shows him this one—says she had been paying her respects to Jeralt when she saw the little family, thought Felix might be interested. This family runs a mix of gray to orange and meow constantly around their mother, a severe-looking gray tabby that raises her hackles whenever Felix comes too close. He’s seen church staff leave food out for the little family a distance away and thinks that this is the reason why there is a bad ant problem a few weeks later.</p><p>The last litter is very hard to find. He’s only ever seen the mother slinking around in storage rooms but has heard the soft meowing of kittens from the lofts above the training grounds. She is black from nose to tail, with only one little white spot on her left front paw. She is extremely cautious and quick and—from the few glimpses that Felix has caught of her—very thin.</p><p>Ashe, upon learning this, begins to leave food out in a dark corner of the training grounds. It disappears every day, but apparently that’s still not enough for him.</p><p>“Could you check to make sure it’s her that’s eating it?” Ashe calls, darting in and out of the corner of Felix’s vision as he tries to turn in time with Felix’s flow drills. The fact that he is keeping up quite well has Felix mildly impressed. “There are so many other animals around in the monastery, you know, I wouldn’t want them to be stealing her food—”</p><p>He has, over the years, acquired the ability to tune out extraneous information and listen only for keywords. He uses this skill on Ashe frequently. He is trying to use it right now.</p><p>“Cats can provide for themselves,” Felix says when Ashe finally stops talking. He is fairly sure that this is an acceptable response.</p><p>“That’s no reason not to help her out! Didn’t you say that she had kittens?” Ashe insists.</p><p>Felix shrugs. He thinks so, but has never technically seen them. Does he have any true evidence that they exist? Well—</p><p>“Felix!”</p><p>Ashe is mad. “Yes. Okay, fine. I will keep watch.”</p><p>A few more half-hearted agreements and Ashe is satisfied enough to where he leaves. The courtyard is finally at peace again. He takes advantage of this time to continue with his drills, casting the very occasional glance at the bowl of shredded chicken Ashe placed in the corner.</p><p>Like this, time passes quickly. Before he knows it, the sun has gone down enough to where dinner is likely to be on. He is just in the middle of cleaning and returning equipment when he spots a black mound by the bowl—</p><p>While, simultaneously, a voice behind him—“Felix, I was—”</p><p>The mound turns into a blur. Felix drops instinctively into a crouch. It streaks off into a shadow behind a few crates.</p><p>“…Oh,” says the voice behind him.</p><p>He can tell now, given how little food is left in the bowl, that the cat had been perched there for a while—or had been, up until Dimitri spoke and she fled. Now that Felix had gotten a closer look at her, she truly was <em>frighteningly </em>thin.</p><p>“What?” Felix snaps, quiet under his breath so as not to scare her off even further. He thinks she’s still there, maybe just waiting them out.</p><p>“Oh. Um—were you headed to dinner tonight?”</p><p>The pointlessness of that question is astounding. “What does it matter to you?” He’s craning his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the cat, to see if she’s still there.</p><p>Dimitri is quiet behind him. Felix knows, without looking, that he’s rifling through his mental stock of well-meaning phrases, anything that he can use to defuse a conversation that doesn’t, in Felix’s opinion, need to be defused.</p><p>“The others were simply wondering. I told them that I had been on my way to return a book to the professor—” There is the tiniest flicker of a black ear behind a crate. She’s still there. “—and would check to ask if you were planning on joining them.”</p><p>Felix creeps slowly behind a crate of his own, one that is outside of her line of vision but that still allows him to keep a good eye on her.</p><p>“Is that it?”</p><p>“Yes, that is all.”</p><p>“Goodbye, then.”</p><p>Her ear flickers from behind the crate again. Felix glances after the bowl—just a few bites left.</p><p>Moments pass. He can practically hear Dimitri’s awkwardness from behind him. It’s painfully awkward for him now, too. He hates how Dimitri has that effect.</p><p>“Um...”</p><p>“<em>What</em>?”</p><p>He thinks the cat ducks away even further at the sharp tone of his voice. He crouches down lower to better hide himself.</p><p>They stay silent for a few more moments. She finally pokes her whole head out. Her eyes are green.</p><p>Dimitri seems to have had enough. “Nothing…I see that you are busy. I will take my leave and see you later, Felix,” he announces.</p><p>He takes one step back. The cat startles—she ducks back behind the crate.</p><p>“Ugh—wait—” Felix reaches out and grabs Dimitri by the leg before he manages another step.</p><p>Dimitri makes a small noise of surprise and almost trips completely. He catches himself—quietly, thank the Goddess—and follows Felix’s gaze back to the crate the cat is behind.</p><p>A moment’s pause, and then another flicker of an ear.</p><p>Well. At least his racket hasn’t scared her off for good. This is not exactly an ideal arrangement—he doesn’t want to spend any more moments than necessary breathing any air within a stone’s toss of Dimitri, but it is what it is.</p><p>“Get down,” he hisses. Dimitri stares at him and, for a moment, Felix wonders if he’ll stop with the farce and finally argue back, question what in the world Felix has been doing to have him hiding from a cat.</p><p>Unfortunately, he disappoints. Dimitri crouches down obediently.</p><p>“Is this your cat, Felix?” he asks instead.</p><p>“Hush,” Felix responds.</p><p>He can feel Dimitri peer out at her from around the top of the crate. It’s a bad angle—nowhere near as good as Felix’s angle, which can make out the tips of her paws as she starts to creep forward again.</p><p>She sticks her nose out. He must admit, begrudgingly, that it is a cute nose.</p><p>A while more of silence, and he can sense Dimitri reaching up to scratch the side of his neck. Though it is not enough sound or movement to frighten the cat, it does wonders in irritating Felix as an unfortunate reminder of how close they are.</p><p>How long do they stay crouched there, waiting for her to come back out? Felix couldn’t say. All he knows is that by the time she finally pads back to the bowl and sticks her face back in to continue eating, his legs have numbed beyond belief. He’s restrained himself from shifting in order to keep from either bumping into Dimitri or scaring her off, but he’s long progressed past the point of feeling pins and needles and is, instead, feeling a stabbing pain.</p><p>“She’s almost finished,” Dimitri murmurs.</p><p>Felix can see that. He has eyes, too.</p><p>When she does finish, she takes a moment to sit back and clean her paws. Watching her take her time is agony.</p><p>It isn’t until a few minutes later that Felix realizes there’s technically no more reason to wait for her—she’s already finished eating, Ashe has no right to pester him now—and he stands up abruptly.</p><p>This manages to scare all three of them at once. The cat darts back off into the shadows. Dimitri falls backward. Felix’s legs, apparently too numb to hold his weight upright after spending so long crouched, give out from under him.</p><p>He sits on the ground, slightly dazed and realizing very quickly that he is also hungry.</p><p>“She was very cute,” Dimitri says a moment later. Felix can tell, from the tone, that this was clearly a statement he’d been holding on to for a while.</p><p>He has no response to that. Dimitri seems to sense this and pushes himself up, says some forced nicety, and turns to leave.</p><p>Felix doesn’t bother watching him go. He waits until the feeling returns to his legs, picks himself up as well, and heads to dinner.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em> twenty-seven</em>.</p><p> </p><p>It is so—<em>so </em> difficult to run quietly on stone floors. Even with the light padding of the carpet, it’s still a little too thin to fully muffle the sound of Felix’s steps as he hurries down the hall, peeking into side rooms.</p><p>One of the doors is cracked enough for him to get in without having to move it and risk a creak. He slides in, holding his breath to avoid jostling the door, and looks around quick. He has since lost track of the count—and the children were always so goddamn unreliable whenever they played this game. He’s convinced they shave off nearly ten seconds each time just to torment him.</p><p>Not many options here. It looks like a classroom, long rows of tables and benches lined before a white-dusted chalkboard. He can still make out the ghost of some arithmetic. There is a small cabinet at the back corner of the room with what he assumes are supplies, and no other furniture otherwise.</p><p>He bends down and peeks under the table. No way to get under there without moving a bench out of the way, and he’s sure to be found out if he does that.</p><p>The cabinet...looks like it could fit nothing larger than a small child. He also didn’t want to chance opening it, either. Much of the furniture in the orphanage is secondhand and much of it creaks.</p><p>A sudden flurry of movement echoing from down the hall, accompanied by frenzied giggles. He can hear the children laugh and tumble over each other down that same hallway he had painstakingly crept down just a few seconds ago—Goddess help him, they <em>definitely </em>cheated again. It couldn’t possibly have been a full minute.</p><p>Well. Out of options, he does a final scan of the room. Heavy curtains by the window.</p><p>It’ll have to do. He grabs a corner and ducks behind it—and is thoroughly unamused when he comes face to face with Dimitri.</p><p>“Hello,” he whispers, pushing into the little sliver of available space so quickly that he barrels right into Dimitri before the other has a chance to take even half a step back.</p><p>“Felix,” Dimitri whispers back. “What are you doing?”</p><p>“What do you think I’m doing? Stop talking.”</p><p>They pause for a brief moment to listen for movement outside.</p><p>After it proves to be silent enough, Dimitri leans in and whispers again, more insistently, “There isn’t room for the both of us here.”</p><p>No, there isn’t. They’re practically crushed against each other. But there isn’t exactly anywhere else to hide in the room, and the time has passed to leave and find another.</p><p>“There’s so much space,” Felix says, waving his hand in the nonexistent gap between them and the curtain.</p><p>It shakes the curtain slightly. They both look at it with mild panic until it settles.</p><p>“Felix, please.”</p><p>“There isn’t anywhere else to hide!”</p><p>“I—well—we will definitely be found like this.”</p><p>“Not if you stop talking. Stop talking.”</p><p>He does, but only for a few seconds. It’s enough time for Felix to hear the children’s voices from further down the hall—they still sound happy and excited, but not too excited. That must mean that no one else had been found yet.</p><p>“Felix, it was already obvious enough with only me hiding here.”</p><p>“Clearly not. I didn’t notice.”</p><p>“You were in a fit of panic—these little ones...they...they are bloodhounds.”</p><p>“I know, only—just wait—”</p><p>“Do you remember last time?” Dimitri whispers, low and fast. “When Sylvain hid in the headmistress’s—”</p><p>“I <em> know</em>, you don’t have to—”</p><p>“—room, under her desk, and they—”</p><p>“Yes, they dragged him—”</p><p>“They dragged him out by his legs and when he ate the punishment cake he nearly vomited, and he complained of stomach aches for the next full da—”</p><p>Felix shushes him frantically at the sound of footsteps outside of their door. They both listen for the sound, hold their breaths.</p><p>A voice calls something out with a childish drawl, something so garbled that it is impossible to make our past a half-closed door and thick curtains. A moment later and there is a response from further down the hall, closer to the starting room.</p><p>The footsteps run off in that direction. They both exhale. Felix turns his most exasperated stare onto Dimitri.</p><p>“You’re such a poor sport.”</p><p>“It is easier to be a good sport for the first five punishment cakes,” Dimitri mumbles, peeking out to glance watchfully at the door. “I am determined to ensure there will not be a sixth.”</p><p>“You can barely taste them.”</p><p>“It is not the taste that is the most odious. It is the texture—or at times, the lack thereof, the...the nagging thought in your head that though this won’t kill you at the moment, it very well might cause lasting harm to your stomach...”</p><p>Dimitri looks pale just recollecting the experience. Felix would accuse him of being dramatic if he didn’t also feel sick at the thought. In all these years he has, luckily, only been made to eat one punishment cake. It had been bitter and salty and had held the consistency of thick pulp. Something gritty had clung to his teeth that he still refuses to think about. The aftertaste had haunted him for hours.</p><p>He knows that the ingredients for punishment cakes change depending on whatever the children find funny. Considering their appreciation for toilet humor, he does not feel reassured.</p><p>“I suspect I ate one with beetles once. Is it beetle season at the moment?”</p><p>“<em>Why </em> would I know that?” Felix whispers.</p><p>Dimitri sighs a deep sigh, one with the weight of a man who has been made to eat five punishment cakes in his lifetime.</p><p>“Stop. As long as we’re not the first ones found, we’ll be fine.”</p><p>“Unfortunately, anyone could tell we were here from the moment they step in.”</p><p>“Stop <em> sulking</em>.” Felix raises his voice just slightly for effect. “Just stay quiet and they won’t even check this room. They must know that there are no places to hide he—“</p><p>The door swings open with a loud creak. Felix closes his mouth as Dimitri turns to stare pointedly at him. He feels an enormous urge to hit Dimitri in his side.</p><p>“Hello?” a little voice calls in.</p><p>Neither of them responds. Dimitri sinks a little closer against the window. Felix thinks of punishment cakes and stops breathing.</p><p>“There isn’t anywhere to hide in that room! Why are you looking?”</p><p>“But there are—the desks—I thought the desks might—”</p><p>Two sets of feet come into the room as they begin to consult with each other about the practicality of an adult shoving themselves under little wooden tables meant for children. Felix hears them pause at each and knows with a surety that they’re ducking underneath them to check. Another two desks and they’ll be close enough to notice their feet under the curtains, if not the way that the curtain itself keeps shifting lazily from how they keep bumping against it.</p><p>Felix looks up to see an incredibly grim look on Dimitri’s face, almost as if he was bracing himself for death itself. It’s not a face Felix has seen in quite a few years, not since the end of the war. Something about it all is just absolutely ridiculous—that expression, coupled with the bright sunlight on the other side of the window, the two childish voices in the room with them, the fact that it is a completely mundane Thursday.</p><p>Felix thinks his snicker is appropriately quiet, but apparently not.</p><p>“There’s someone behind the curtains!”</p><p>The curtains are yanked apart and Felix winces when he hears the degree of happy shrieking that accompanies their exposure. He knows they’re the biggest prizes of the bunch—Dimitri, particularly, as their beloved king—and that the children are only celebrating as would be fitting. That, however, doesn’t stop the sinking feeling in his stomach when they declare that they were the first found and that, given they hid together, they must share the punishment.</p><p>“Oh my, how lovely,” Dimitri says upon seeing the cake of the day. “How green.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p><p><em> thirty-seven</em>.</p><p> </p><p>Free mornings are rare. Free mornings are boring, sometimes, but almost thankfully so. Felix doesn’t know what he would do if they had no free mornings, ever—if their lives were just a constant rush of audiences and meetings and weighty decisions, one piled after another in a very literal metaphor reflected through the documents Felix knows are stacked in the council room.</p><p>Granted, Felix doesn’t have to suffer through these meetings. He’s more than content with his role with the standing army and training of new recruits, the constant monitoring of their borders—he would even admit it was fun.</p><p>But even then, free mornings are nice.</p><p>He is the first to rise, as he usually is, and lights the hearth quickly and efficiently. It is a slow and persistent spring this year, one that holds a frost long past its welcome. He would have frozen his ass off the moment he got out of bed if he hadn’t pilfered Dimitri‘s fuzzy slippers. Despite all his teasing over the years about these slippers, they are handy to have around.</p><p>The fire comes to life. He feeds it enough to burn for an hour or so. A quick glance back to the bed—Dimitri is still asleep, if the slow rise and fall of the blankets is any indication.</p><p>Well, free mornings are a <em> little </em>more boring if he has to pass them alone.</p><p>He picks up an unfinished book from the nightstand and settles in his armchair, propping it on a crossed leg.</p><p>He checks the bookmarks and groans—Dimitri has out-read him again, this time by a far margin. How that man finds the time to read in his schedule when he’s either in meetings or they’re together, Felix will never know. He can almost picture Dimitri bent over the book late at night while Felix is asleep, poring over it by candlelight to reclaim his lead. But Dimitri—though occasionally petty—isn’t <em>that </em>petty.</p><p>He thinks. Maybe.</p><p>Felix flips back to his own bookmark and starts to read, finding a precarious balance between understanding the words on the page and reading as fast as humanly possible.</p><p>It’s easy to lose track of time in a book. He had never been much of a reader before Dimitri, but he can see the appeal now. Books can be engaging sometimes. There is more out there than the stock, chivalric propaganda that was fed to them as children. Felix likes the ones that Dimitri chooses, likes how they talk so confidently and unapologetically about mundane lives very different from their own with a conviction that makes him feel it’s <em>his </em>life—nobility, Crests, chivalry, war—that is the outlier.</p><p>The fire is burning embers by the time that Felix hears stirring from the bed. He mentally curses—he’s still much too far behind—and tries to read even faster.</p><p><em> Paulaleptacrosstheriverbankattopspeedshecaughthertoeagainstarockand</em>—</p><p>“Felix?” Dimitri mumbles, half-asleep. “Did you light the fire, love?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p><em> Hoofbeatsrangthroughtheearthastheknightschasedherthroughtheforestbrushstoppingfornothinglikeaninpenetrable</em>—</p><p>“Oh.”—<em>downonherimpossibletoavoidandsurelyapromiseof</em>—“Thank you.”</p><p>“Mmhmm.”</p><p><em> Herbrother’sbabyCharlesstillsowarminherarmshasnotyetbeguntostir</em>—</p><p>“Have you been awake for long? Have I kept you waiting?”</p><p>“I’ve been reading.”</p><p><em> SuchaninnocentbabeinsuchacruelworldshethinkswellIshallnotletthemhavehimheis</em>—</p><p>“<em>The Second Son</em>?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>“Oh!” Dimitri’s voice, though still thick with sleep, begins to take on a more excited edge. “I simply could not put it down last night. The portion after Paula drops Charles into the river—”</p><p>Felix places his bookmark back and closes the book. He sits back and exhales.</p><p>“Dimitri,” he says.</p><p>It takes just a moment.</p><p>“Oh, my dear one, I am so—I apologize, had you not reached that scene? I thought it was after—or was it before?—when she finds out the knights chasing her were paid by her brother all along—”</p><p>“<em>Dimitri</em>!”</p><p>More rustling by the bed—he turns to see Dimitri stand, still swaying, dazed enough to keep the blankets wrapped around himself. They pull off the bed slowly as he moves, like peeling a fruit, pooling on the ground in a great royal puddle.</p><p>He drags himself—and half their bed—up to give Felix a series of guilty, apologetic kisses, leaning against the back of his chair in a way that spills the blankets down over both of them. Felix has to tilt his head back completely to keep Dimitri in his vision, but it’s nice when Dimitri reaches to cup his face with his hands.</p><p>“I am so sorry, love, I really thought—”</p><p>“It’s fine. It was easy to see it coming.” He hadn’t seen it coming. He had had no idea. Paula’s brother hires the knights to chase down and kill his own son? But that must mean the true plot behind their father’s death—</p><p>“You are so bright,” Dimitri beams at him. He has creases left on his cheek from the pillow and is still struggling to keep his eye fully open. His hair is an absolute disaster. “I am sorry, nonetheless. But I, myself, did not anticipate such a twist.”</p><p>Felix pulls the blankets closed over himself. They’re heavy, warm, and smell like a comforting mixture of them both. It forms a pleasant little cocoon around them.</p><p>“It’s a good book.”</p><p>“Don’t you think? I love this author. After we finish <em> The Second Son</em>, we must pick up <em> Mother for a Midsummer</em>. I heard that one was also very well-received. And then perhaps her series, <em> Tales of Touncle Pass</em>.”</p><p>“Okay,” Felix says. He remembers something Dimitri said before. “You stayed up <em> all </em> night reading?”</p><p>Dimitri turns sheepish. “No. Well—not <em>all </em>night. Only past the scene where—I won’t say—until the point where things begin to calm down again, when—ah.” He realizes and pauses, gives up, leans down to plant another kiss on Felix’s forehead. “Only for a few hours after you fell asleep, love.”</p><p>“Are you not sleepy, then?”</p><p>Dimitri makes a face that means yes, but that he doesn’t want to admit it. It’s one of the faces that give Felix the most trouble.</p><p>Felix pulls him down with his hold on the blankets for a proper kiss.</p><p>“Go back to bed and rest.”</p><p>“But it‘s our free morning.”</p><p>“The perfect time to sleep in a little.” And maybe he can catch up on<em> The Second Son </em>in the meantime.</p><p>“Are you sure?”</p><p>“Yes. Go.”</p><p>Dimitri sighs. “I had hoped to spend this time with you.”</p><p>That does something painful to Felix’s heart. He considers ignoring it for a fraction of a second, but it becomes unbearable.</p><p>...Damn him. He gives up and sets the book aside, onto the table by his armchair. Dimitri does not miss this—his eye tracks the movement, and then he gives a small smile.</p><p>Wait, had he been—?</p><p>Dimitri bends to nuzzle against him.</p><p>“As your king, I order you to accompany me back to bed,” he says.</p><p>Felix has to consciously refrain from rolling his eyes. “Do I look like a man that can be ordered to bed?”</p><p>Dimitri pushes his mouth into a small frown. It’s playful, Felix recognizes—both his expression and the way that his thumbs smooth sweetly against the sides of Felix’s face, before he bends again to give him a quick peck on the nose.</p><p>Dimitri’s stern facade melts into cheerfulness.</p><p>“Then—as your husband, I humbly request your company in bed, where we may warm each other under the covers and make light conversation until they come to scold us for missing breakfast.”</p><p>His smile is slight but crooked, quirked too much towards the left. Some of his hair slips out from where it had been pushed behind his ear and fans down the side of his cheek.</p><p>He looks blisteringly happy. Felix sighs.</p><p>“Well,” he says, pushing himself up from the armchair, turning to tuck that persistent lock of hair back behind Dimitri’s ear. “I suppose there are worse things.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>("By the by, love, have you spotted my slippers when—oh, do you like them? If you do, we can request another pair—")</p><p>// the alternative title to this while i was working on it was "dmfx hiding behind and under things together over the years." fitting, right????</p><p>ANYWAY i really like thinking about how well they play together! i think it's more difficult to imagine given what goes down in canon but it's fun to think about, especially since they did play together very well for many years. so thank you owl for giving me the opportunity to play around with scenes like these! it was a fun exercise in happier dmfx (a rare treat)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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